Quiet

I tend to explain myself at great length. I loathe being misunderstood and misunderstanding is perhaps more common than understanding, especially in writing. Even face-to-face, it is difficult to make ourselves clear. So, the more the merrier.

But words don't work that way, do they? Words are symbols for thoughts and feelings and concepts that cannot be understood through words. Try defining love. Good luck. Using more of the damn things doesn't seem to clarify anything at all. When they don't obfuscate, they bore. Often both.

Yet I go on and on and on. Some part of me believes that the more words I use, I closer I may be to that breakthrough moment when what is going on inside my head matches what you perceive. I know better, but I can't seem to help myself.

No wonder the Vulcan mind meld (while also horrifying to contemplate) has a certain appeal. OK, then, there you have it, the inside of my head. Now that we have that out of the way....

I have been in conflict with many people to one degree or another several times in the past few weeks. Many of these are people I love. I have tried to make myself understood. And failed. Not utterly, of course. I may have communicated a fair portion of what I was thinking. But when we get into the realm of feeling and pure, unadulterated thought—fuhgidabowdit. Yet I keep trying. Try to express ooph. or ouch or kerwilikers in real words. Good luck. We hurt each other. We don't say what we mean because we can't.

This is the nature of poetry, isn't it? The poet says: this is what I intend to convey, and these words are the way I choose to do so. I may have no idea what exactly they mean and you may not think they mean anything even remotely similar to what I was thinking or feeling. Yet if my poem is good, it sends a message across the void. And you just might get it.

To wit:

Beannacht

("Blessing")

On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.

And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

~ John O'Donohue ~

And we know what that means. Even if we don't. Know what I mean? I think I will try quiet.